Posts Tagged ‘LEGO Hobbit’

Hi all, I know I’ve been missing in action for the past many, many days. But I’ve been quite busy working on a model for Carbine Studios and NCSoft — that will be covered in a separate post ;) — so now that I’ve finally got a little bit of a breather, I can finally post again. Yay!!! :D

Yes, you can enter once all three ways. I will leave the giveaway open till midnight April 30th (pacific standard time). This will be international, so as long as I can mail this to you, I will (but the Hobbit 2 blueray and DVD are Region 1, so may not work internationally).

My jaw literally dropped when I saw this and all I could say was “WOW!”

It took a team of 12 model shop employees 3,000 hours to build this life size model of the LEGO Bag End set. In addition to containing over 2 million 1×1 bricks this model has working lights in the fireplace and over the bookstand as well as a chimney that really smokes!

The people in the picture give you a hint on the shear scale of this model.

I made this about a week ago, but didn’t think to post it on Flickr till last night after I posted it as my Facebook picture. I was surprised to see such a huge response, both on Facebook and Flickr. Brothers Brick even posted it this morning. :)

What’s really getting a lot of people’s attention are the curls and the bow. Pixar’s Merida is known for her wild frizzy hair and I wanted to capture it as close as I could in a 4 inch figure.

I have to admit though, this technique isn’t new — at least in Miniland building — this has been a technique for creating curly hair for as long as I can remember at the LEGOLAND parks and I have used variations of it many times on several of my Superhero figures like Wonder Woman and for my Wedding Cake Topper Brides.

And of course what is Merida without her bow? I thought about using the new elf long bow from the Hobbit sets, but I realized it would still be too short. So I did the next best thing, I made one out of pearl cotton thread and a bit of copper flex tubing. The quiver might be a tad too short, but it was just to perfect not to use verses trying to design my own. ;)

So I’ve been playing LEGO Lord of the Rings the Video Game for about a week now. I’ve beaten the story portion and I’m making my way through gathering all the extras. I’m playing it on PS3, as that’s my console of choice. First impression — Awesome!!!!

Before I played it, I was a little hesitant with this game. Some of you might cringe when I say this, but I’m not a fan of the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) trilogy. I love the Hobbit, which I’ve read several times, but the LOTR is just a little too heavy and depressing (if I want to be perfectly honest). Sure it has a grand sweeping story of power, tragedy and good triumphing over evil but I just can’t get into it.

I couldn’t even get excited about the sets too much. Somewhat because of my lack of interest in the subject matter, but also because there isn’t all that much in the way of parts that interests me in the sets. Yes, it is a bevvy of castle parts, and I used to be almost exclusively castle when I was younger. I just don’t build castles much anymore. And of course there are the minifigures but I don’t need to collect every figure either.

Putting all of that aside, I wanted to get the game and see for myself what it was like. And of course I wanted to share my opinion of the game with all of you. ;)

Now after LEGO Batman 2 I wasn’t sure how TT Games could top it. Being able to traverse all of Gotham was simply awesome, especially flying around as Superman. There’s no flying in this game (or if there is, I haven’t found it yet :D ) and like the books you are walking around Middle Earth — all of Middle Earth.

Take that in for a moment. All of Middle Earth. Peter Jackson may have opened the window into the world, but running around a LEGO version of it is simply cool. Its all there — the Shire, Mines of Moria, etc. And you get to bash all sorts of things for golden coins to your hearts content. Its all laid out on the familiar map of Middle Earth and as you go through the different stages you unlock more of the world. The initial playing of the game as I beat each “story” version of the levels really kept me wanting to play till I beat the whole thing.

The Fellowship characters are all used with pretty equal amounts of time, which is nice. Giving even Pippen and Merry specific tasks that only they can do. Although I’ve found that Legolas is one of my favorite to play. Is that on purpose I wonder? :D

One thing I like even better than LEGO Batman 2 is that it is much easier to find the special silver bricks and items. In Batman I got a little tired of trying to find all the specials. I didn’t completely finish it after I went around the city for what felt like the 50th time.

You will probably get a little tired of traveling around here too as there is a vast assortment of items you need to collect. It is a little tiring traveling around all over. I feel as if I’ve gone on the long journey that the fellowship took. Here its easy to go on the map and actually select where you want to go and have the helpful transparent travel studs to show you the way. The only time I’ve found it hard to see them is in the snowy mountainous areas.

If you don’t want to wait for the game, but want to see all the “mini movies” you can see it here:

If you aren’t familiar with the story (and who isn’t really?) then there might be a few spoilers. There’s the now classic TT Games humor as well. But I have to warn you, it is an hour and a half long. So in essence, its really a full length movie.

So my over all opinion — get it! It might be a tad scary for the little ones, although they’ve skipped over a lot of the truly scary parts of the story. It would be a great Christmas gift for any little (or big) kids to play.

Here’s hoping (and I bet it will) that there will be a LEGO Hobbit the Video Game in the future.

According to Brickset this will be the exclusive set that will be offered over the Thanksgiving Weekend (i.e. Black Friday) for those spending the qualifying amount which is believed to be €75, £50 and $99 USD either at LEGO.com or at the LEGO stores.

For those that are interested the instructions are already available on LEGO.com There isn’t too much that is exclusive parts wise, but the set itself is pretty cute.

Also, keep your eyes peeled because Hobbit sets are starting to pop up. Even though they are supposed to be out December 1st. many people are already finding them at stores. ;)

Here’s a look at the LEGO Lord of the Rings Video Game play. Its now slated to release November 13th, two weeks later than originally. But, now that I’ve watched the video, I’m not as excited as I was about this game. I personally am not a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I much prefer the Hobbit, as its more adventure and less darkness. And I doubt it will be as fun as LEGO Batman 2, as that went above and beyond my expectations on the coolness factor.

But don’t worry, I will be getting it and reviewing it, once it finally is out. I’m just less excited than I was. We’ll see how it actually plays once I’ve got it.

Its the first I’ve seen any official images of the Hobbit Minifigs and I’m sure they will have the actual figs on display at the LEGO booth.

There will also be these stunning Gandalf and Bilbo life size figures on display:Via: USA Today

I’m really looking forward to seeing the models in person. :D

Still no word on what the LEGO Comic Con Exclusive will be this year. They like to keep that under wraps until the very last moment. So I guess I’ll find that out on Preview Night. I will do my best to actually post some of Comic Con while I’m there.

Oh and for those that are lucky enough to go there are two LEGO related panels that I know of —

On Friday featuring your’s truly ;)
3:00-4:00 LEGO Fan Community and What They Build— Jim Foulds (community relations manager for the LEGO Group), Joe Meno (editor of BrickJournal Magazine), Mariann Asanuma (author of modelbuildingsecrets.com), and Steve Decraemer (model builder for LEGOLand California) discuss the LEGO Fan community, what they build, how they build it, and what it takes to become a member of this growing community. Room 28E

And on Saturday
5:00-6:00 BrickJournal— In the past decade, a community has grown around the toy bricks produced by the LEGO Group. With Joe Meno (editor of BrickJournal magazine and contributor to The Cult of LEGO book) as your guide, see how the community has grown and what they have built, with builders Brandon Griffith and Elizabeth Cortes, plus Jim Foulds of the LEGO Community Team and LEGO certified professional builder Nathan Sawaya. Dust off those bricks and join the community of LEGO builders! Room 23ABC

So if you are going, come to the panels. And if you aren’t I’ll be there to post the happenings. :D